ShortScale.org

stewart wrote:maybe a cheeky wee curve ball, but i've got a solid state fender deluxe 112+ sitting in a cupboard doing nowt since i got the JC120. clean 4 dayz. i can bring it down to london if you want it, yours for £80.

johnnyseven wrote:Thanks for the suggestion Hurb. They have Line 6 amps at the Water Rats for their house amps, if they are the same ones as you have suggested then I shall be steeriing well clear - i've never been able to get a good sound out of them.

Haze wrote:Is definitely look into a 10" speaker to handle the extra power though

Hurb wrote:

johnnyseven wrote:Thanks for the suggestion Hurb. They have Line 6 amps at the Water Rats for their house amps, if they are the same ones as you have suggested then I shall be steeriing well clear - i've never been able to get a good sound out of them.

I love mine, for clean like you said you wanted it's brilliant and even for low grit and overdrive sounds. the overdrive's take some tweaking mind.

I think it sounds good and it takes pedals better than other amps I've tried.

johnnyseven wrote:

stewart wrote:maybe a cheeky wee curve ball, but i've got a solid state fender deluxe 112+ sitting in a cupboard doing nowt since i got the JC120. clean 4 dayz. i can bring it down to london if you want it, yours for £80.

Me buying another amp depends on me selling mine, the guy was supposed to come round tonight but it was pissing it down so he didn't. Hopefully he'll come tomorrow and take it of my hands, if so I might be interested but i'll have to make some investigations first as I don't know these amps. Also I won't really be able to take it home after the gig on saturday but if you're able to meet somewhere during the day saturday or sunday that would be good.

Hurb wrote:
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hotrodperlmutter wrote:srsly though, my vote is for a vox of some sort, but i'm biased.

find a cambridge 30 twin with/reverb & trem for like $200 easy. then do the 56w chip swap and you got mucho amp for nottalottadolla.

johnnyseven wrote:Thanks Stewart. I happen to have those in one of my Jazzmasters so I think i'll definitely be investigating one of these amps further which means i'll have to say no to your Fender Deluxe 112+ i'm afraid.

Carl,

These modifications work on both the twin and the single versions of the amp.
Attached is the documentation I gathered from the internet and used to do both the optocoupler and the amp chip mods. You need only do the optocoupler to make the amp work properly. The change to the 56w amp chip greatly increases the amp's headroom and usefulness, though!!! I did the mods myself, and I had never done any work inside an amp before, so anyone should be able to do it! Since then I've done three more of them for other people and they've all turned out great.
The stock optocoupler is the basic problem with the amp, and the cause of the infamous "Cambridgitis" symptoms of loss of power and distorted output. Basically, they chose a cheap part which cannot withstand anywhere near the full power of the amp... so it just starts to quit when you push the amp hard... the volume gradually fades and becomes horribly distorted. The new optocoupler solves that. Even if you don't do the amp mod, changing the optocoupler will give you a nice amp which will then work the way it was supposed to. Be sure to note the location of the "+" lead when removing the old optocoupler, so the new one can be oriented the same way. You can just cut off the fifth "middle" lead on the new chip. It is not used. After soldering the new optocoupler in place, be sure to trim the excess leads very close to the PC board before re-assembling, or they will make contact with the metal chassis underneath.
By replacing the amp chip, you also give the amp some extra 'kick' and clean headroom... and turns it into quite an extraordinary "practice" amp! Note that there are two different methods indicated in the documentation. 'Bob' retains the little circuit board that it 'rides' on... while 'Wil' discards it and solders the leads directly to the chip pins. Either way will work, but check and double-check to make sure you have the proper wire-to-pin sequence in either case. If you retain the little circuit board, the remaining pins (after you break off the ones not used) must be GENTLY bent to fit into the board. Just go slowly and it's fine. (Use the 56w chip. The 68w version of the chip requires additional circuitry not covered by this documentation, and there is no benefit gained. You would not be able to hear the difference.)
One thing to make sure to do... there are two variable resistors near the opto on the circuit board. While you have the amp apart, plug in and adjust these VR's to obtain maximum gain... they were very conservatively set at the factory. One of them is the gain, one is the tremolo depth (can't recall which is which). I find that setting them at a bit less than maximum gives the best results. You will lose a little tremolo depth, but the amp will sound much fuller.

I bought the optocoupler from: http://vibroworld.com/
The amp chip came from: http://www.digikey.com/
You should be able to Google the part numbers and find a supplier close to you.

Look it all over and see if it makes sense to you. I will be glad to answer any questions you have... just email... I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Mark
West Bath, Maine, US

Pens wrote:FUUUUUUUUUUUU I waited to grab the zip from my home laptop and the file is now unavailable?!